our final role as birds
by Sowing Poppies
Summary: His whole life, he's just been waiting. AkuRoku.


fun fact: my beta is the greatest beta in the world.

happy 8/13, everyone.

* * *

our final role as birds

X

Axel wakes up on a train, sitting next to a boy who is wearing a black trench coat in the middle of summer. This situation definitely calls for some form of mocking. Sadly, the best his brain can produce at the moment is, "Dude, aren't you _hot_?"

He blinks when the boy shoves off his hood and glares at him with eyes that are a shade too blue to be real.

"What?" the boy snaps, and runs a gloved hand through his hair, mussing it up even more. Axel doubts this was intentional, but he isn't stupid enough to open his mouth now. The boy looks ridiculously high-strung, like he's itching for an excuse to kick somebody's ass, and Axel is the only other person in the compartment.

"Right, guess not," Axel says, and tries for a smile. "These new trains are awesome, they've got AC and everything. I could probably wear like, my whole closet and still not be hot."

"You're kind of idiot, aren't you?" the boy says, and Axel shrugs, because he knows he can't win them all.

"Sure," he says.

The boy glances out the window and tells him, "Your stop is coming up."

Axel frowns. He doesn't actually remember why he got on this train in the first place.

"My - "

X

" – what?"

Axel is sitting in the middle of a dim restaurant, directly across from his ex-girlfriend.

Axel is also, officially, flailing in the deep end of the sanity pool.

Larxene snaps her fingers in front of his face and says, "C'mon, pay attention when I'm talking to you, asshole."

"Hey, Larx," he says, and swallows, and sits up a little straighter. "What are you - "

" - Doing here?" Her face flushes, hot and pretty, and Axel remembers distinctly why he asked her out after a particularly long session of detention, forever ago. "Jesus, I can't believe you were going to ask me that! _You_ were the one who wanted to have dinner, you - "

Axel leans across the table and kisses her, just because it is easier than waiting for a slap, which is an awful reason, he knows, but she never seemed to mind before. Her lips part in surprise and he tastes cheap wine, chocolate, something sharp and sweet on the edge of her tongue before she shoves him back with a strange look in her eyes.

"Um," he says, and gets ready to run.

"Christ, Axel," she says. "What the fuck was that?"

"I'm sorry?" he ventures. "I just – I kind of thought I was dreaming, and I'd wake up before you could kill me."

"Well, that's stupid," Larxene huffs, crossing her arms. "Also, the lamest excuse I've heard in – god, fucking _ever_."

"So, this is real?" Axel says, starting to feel relieved. The train ride must have been a daydream, then, which would make sense. Normal people don't wear black coats in the middle of a heatwave.

Larxene bares her teeth in a grin that borders on manic and Axel tenses in his seat. He remembers distinctly why they broke up too.

"Who said this is real?" Larxene laughs, harsh and loud, and Axel says, "Isn't it?"

He curls his hands around the wooden edge of his seat, gripping hard enough to -

X

- let go the instant he realizes the train is rattling beneath him, and he is still sitting next to the blond boy. Larxene, the restaurant – they're nowhere in sight.

"That was short," the boy says, and smiles a little to himself, like there's something funny going on just beneath the radar of Axel's consciousness.

"What the fuck is going on here?" Axel snaps, and stands up. The train sways around a bend and he falls back onto the bench a second later, landing hard enough to knock the breath out of his lungs, and he wonders briefly why the wooden benches aren't covered with cushions to make the trip more bearable. Even the _subway_ has nicer seats.

The boy rolls his eyes and says, "If you haven't figured it out by now, you're going to really, really soon."

"And if I don't?" Axel says. "Will you like, try to explain it to me then? Because I'm so fucking lost right now, I don't even remember getting onto a train or - "

"What's the last thing you remember?" The boy cuts him off carelessly, looking a little curious. The furrow between his brow is smoothed out and he looks younger, almost like a kid.

"I," Axel says, and pauses.

He remembers opening the front door, and walking down the street, and pressing through a crowd of bodies fighting to cram through the turnstiles in the subway, and –

And –

And.

"Yeah?" the boy says, leaning closer, a flicker of excitement in his eyes. "What else?"

"I – yeah, that's pretty much it." His own disappointment is reflected in the scowl on the boy's face, and Axel feels absurdly guilty for a moment before he reminds himself that he doesn't even know this boy. "Sorry," he says, shrugging. "Still don't know what I'm doing here."

"Yeah, well, go cry about it," the boy mumbles, and hunches his shoulders defensively. "Hey, you've got another stop coming up."

"Wait," Axel says, panic starting to bubble up in his gut. "Hold on a sec, I still don't - "

X

" – know how to wake up!"

Demyx glances up at him from the corner of the dilapidated tree house and Axel feels a dizzying wave of déjà-vu. The unlit cigarette dangling from Demyx's lips bounces when Demyx laughs, and Axel remembers that he never smoked, just carried around a pack because Axel always did.

He hasn't seen Demyx in years.

"Fuck," Demyx says, and pulls the cigarette from his mouth. "You're not asleep, man, so don't worry about waking up."

"What the fuck is happening to me?" Axel says, but by the way Demyx winces, he's pretty sure it comes out sounding exactly as scared and angry as he doesn't want to feel.

"This isn't a dream," Demyx says. "Actually, you were kind of supposed to remember what happened. I think. Well, most people do."

"Most people do – what? And why the fuck are you here? I thought you moved across the country to live with your girlfriend, and - fuck, I haven't seen you in _years_, and now you just - "

"Hey, Axel," Demyx says, gently, trying to soothe him, but it's starting to have the opposite effect and Axel's never felt more terrified in his life. "I _am_ across the country, living with my girlfriend."

"No, you're right here, you're – why the fuck are you here? This is the tree house your dad built for us in grade school and, shit - I thought it fell apart ages ago." His head feels like it has been stuffed full of onionskin pages, or dry leaves that crackle with every shift in thought. Something feels out of place. _Everything_ is out of place.

"I guess I was supposed to make sure you weren't scared." Demyx looks rueful and Axel just wants to punch him in the face. "Looks like I'm not doing such a great job of it, though."

"Yeah, like _that's_ such a fucking surprise," Axel snaps, dropping his head back against the wall. Maybe he doesn't need his sanity. Maybe it's like losing a kidney or something.

"I'm sorry," Demyx says, and he sounds sincere, which is the only reason Axel looks down at him.

"You aren't going to tell me, or you can't tell me? 'Cause either way, I gotta say, you're being a total bitch about this."

Demyx laughs and says, "I know this is weird, and confusing as fuck, but you gotta know that you're going to be okay. I don't – I really can't do anything right now."

"It's too late?" Axel says, and feels something cold slide down his spine –

X

- and sits up, startled, grasping at the damp spot on the back of his t-shirt. His hand comes away slightly wet and he wonders if he should sniff it, or if it's better to just wipe it discreetly on his jeans.

"I think the roof's starting to leak," the boy says, thoughtfully, and pulls on his hood.

"I still haven't figured it out yet," Axel says, and frowns. "But that's mostly because my best friend is a fucking retard, so I guess it's all up to you then. So, spit it out. Tell me what's going on in my freaky fucked up head."

"There's nothing wrong with your head," the boy says. "Just – with everything else in your body, I guess? I mean - " He looks like he wants to squirm in his seat, and Axel leans closer, curious in spite of himself. The boy doesn't look like he gets rattled often.

"That made no fucking sense," Axel says, helpfully.

"Sorry," the boy says, and rolls his eyes, and Axel gets the feeling that he only does it because he's nervous. "Most people already know by the time I see them. I've – never had to explain it before. This is really fucking weird."

"Yeah, yeah, I kinda got that," Axel says. "I'm the stupid fucking anomaly that messes up all of your precious data. What else is new?"

"No, you don't _get_ it." The boy's lips twitch downwards for an instant, which is somehow even worse than his scowl, which Axel didn't know was in the realm of possibility until – well, just a second ago, obviously. "I've been doing this for almost – pretty close to fucking forever, and people _always_ know why they're here, and they spend like, hours at each stop, but you go for maybe about a minute, and then you're back here again, and I don't know why you can't remember - "

"I get bored easily," Axel says. "Or, hey, maybe I'm just a really fast mover?" The boy, surprisingly, freezes with one hand in mid-sweep, deflating a little.

"Oh," he says, sounding a little sad. "I guess – I mean, even the people who say they've got no regrets spend a lot of time outside the train but - "

X

"- you're _here_," his mother says, smiling. Axel blinks and glances behind her at the stove, which is covered with copper pots and pans that smell faintly like home, or beef stew. He doesn't how to distinguish between the two anymore and doesn't bother.

"I'm here," Axel repeats, and wishes for one strange moment that the boy was with him too. Nobody should look that lonely, he thinks, and almost misses it when his mother slides a steaming bowl in front of him. It smells delicious, but he knows he can't eat it. He frowns at the tabletop.

"I wish you had more time," his mother says, and Axel shrugs and says, "Me too," only he knows he isn't talking about himself. The buzzing in his head is clearing a little, slowly, like an open window letting all of the bees out, and he can't muster up any surprise at seeing his mother humming and stirring pots instead of rotting in the ground where they buried her when he was thirteen.

She is supposed to be gone. She is standing in front of him.

A large puzzle piece slides into place and clicks distantly, somewhere in the back of his mind, and he realizes that he is supposed to be saying goodbye.

"You're starting to understand?" his mother asks, gently, her eyes just as green as he remembered them to be, like the jacket of the woman who nudged him over by accident, who screamed when the brakes on the train started screeching -

He closes his eyes and swallows, hard.

"Fuck," he says.

It doesn't seem to matter that his memories are slowly filtering back into his brain, linking together to form a chain of events that build up to an ending he can visualize now in stunning detail.

His past doesn't matter anymore.

"It's weird," he says, "I don't have any regrets, even though I know that I probably should, because there's so much I haven't done yet. I just - I have to get back on that train."

"Good boy," his mother says, and smiles in something that looks distinctly like pride, and –

X

- Axel smiles back, reaching out to grab the boy's startled hands, saying, "I get it, my body, it's on the subway tracks, I'm - "

"Dead, yeah," the boy says, looking scared, looking disappointed, looking like he wants very badly to flinch back. "Congratulations. Guess that really was your last stop, then. I don't count the one coming up next 'cause I don't know what's after it."

"I've never felt so – so fucking _awake_," Axel begins to say, and the boy blinks, confused, giving Axel enough time to try to organize his thoughts before he decides to just plow though the mess in his head, and _screw _making sense. "Even before, when my heart was still beating and everything, I never felt this awake. That's weird, isn't it? People are supposed to feel alive when they're actually alive, but – I didn't. Not like this."

A slow flush is growing on the boy's cheeks, and Axel realizes that he hasn't let go of his hands yet. He squeezes, experimentally, and the boy doesn't pull away, even though his gaze darts out the window where there is nothing but darkness waiting outside.

"I - I don't understand," the boy says. "I don't fucking get it. What the hell are you talking about?"

"You were waiting," Axel says. "Like I was waiting. Because we had to meet, eventually. I mean, we _had_ to. This is like, a half-way point, I guess. You were waiting here, and I just needed to catch up. The whole point of me being alive was so that I could fall on the train tracks and end up here."

"I don't – I woke up on this train," the boy says, slowly, desperately, like he is trying to cling to the last remains of something that makes sense, his past. "I don't remember my life, or how I died or – anything. I think I'm supposed to guide people through all the stops. I don't – I can't _remember_ you."

But he sounds like he wants to, and Axel bites down on a smile.

"That's okay," Axel says. "It's okay, seriously, there's still the last stop, right? We still have some time, we'll - "

His only warning is a hand clamping down on his wrist before the boy presses their lips together, too harsh, probably to shut him up, and he bites down on his tongue in surprise, mouth flooding with hot and bitter blood, and it's –

X

- like kissing an apocalypse, Axel thinks vaguely, the dark sand warm under his bare feet, the ocean booming in his ears, and he curls one hand around Roxas's thin neck to keep him still.


End file.
